Wizards of the Coast has released three new downloadable scenarios for its D&D Adventures board game line, and they pack a big surprise for fans of the series. These new scenarios require a mixture of components from both the recently-released Wrath of Ashardalon and last year's Castle Ravenloft.

Entitled "Servants of the Thunder Shaman", the three adventures can be played in sequence as a campaign where heroes will venture into an orc lair to take down its shaman leader. All three new adventures can be downloaded as a printable pdf here on the official Wizards of the Coast website.

For those wondering how the combined games work, the campaign requires special decks to be constructed with a prescribed mixture of cards from each game. Also players are free to choose any combination of hero characters, and are granted the ability to rest and select new powers between adventures. The campaign primarily uses floor tiles from Castle Ravenloft, but pulls many cards and monsters from Wrath of Ashardalon.

Praised for their ability to take the strongest element of Dungeons and Dragons role playing (dungeon crawling combat) and boiling it down into a 1-hour board game with play-as-you-go setup, the D&D Adventures series games have been a joy to play. With the third entry to the series, Legend of Drizzt, in the works, it is a great sign that WotC is prepared to support it's whole line of past and present titles. Stale gameplay is the Achilles heel of scenario-based gaming, but for now, players can be confident this problem won't arise for quite a while.